https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1154488721886937088/snapshot2023092022h36m40s010.png?ex=65186ce8is=65171b68hm=ee4faa0ba42220c65ae9cc6eb0ee3efa7d70a3a8c4508b1ecca7029e77b9b386 I showed the trailer of Guilstein to two of my friends and both of their reactions were the same a glued grimace and a shake of the head. To call an OVA like this an acquired taste would be an understatement and even to those its tasteful to its far from the greatest thing in the world. But oh boy was Guilstein one hell of a meal. I found this in the depths of AniList one night whilst I was foraging through unseen OVAs sorted from least popular to most time period earliest 1990 time period latest 2002 along with an assortment of many other tags I cant care enough to recall. It was then that Guilstein first fell into my lap and right away I knew it was something special. Good? Most certainly not but Special? Most certainly. Only one person I follow had watched it and slapped a hefty 2/10 on its face which is fair it has one only a mother could love. Look at that poster Holy God. Braggadociously plastering the 3DCG label like a badge of honor Guilstein immediately presents you with its greatest problem shown off to you barehanded like a child showing you their mud pie. A pile of shit. A pile of shit with charm. And its premise isnt much better. Guilstein prides itself on being full digital 3D when its nots full digital 3D whatsoever In fact its a blend of 3D graphics and 2D animation which is much more intriguing So right off the bat we have something lost in translation or at the very least something lost in interpretation from either a a stunned viewer or b someone whos never seen the film. The characters designed by portion is an interesting tidbit though denoting a Nirasawa WELL ACCLAIMED for his creature action figures and a brief mention of a probablycokedup Monkey Punch looking to cash in a paycheck for supervising a script. Set in the year 2088 it depicts a dark future in which humans have been transformed into the Guilstein creatures with no human souls in them... https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1154488720955801601/snapshot2023092021h57m08s266.png?ex=65186ce8is=65171b68hm=70d5566118ed3002f762d396e4b4c4b1d4b00677135cd9aac0724e0839193f16 That is all left to be said from Guilsteins premise. Thats all I had to go off of but yetThere was something behind that guise behind that full digital 3D mask that I just had to catch a glimpse of I had to tear it off Scooby Doostyle and see what this beast was really about. So down the rabbit hole I went. Three days ago I fired up Guilstein at around midnight. This is what I saw. Right off the bat were greeted with the theme of the movie BIO BLOOD SOCIETY slapped over some footage of an unknown girl confronting a dangerous monster. And oh boy does this monster look dangerous. Dangerous to the eyes that is. You know how the tests for Toy Story caused it to become an entirely different story altogether? So take that innovative ingenuity and dash it against the rocks because were just trying to make a kickass OVA here. This is now. We get our first glimpse of our very first creature action figure of the film. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1157547286239383653/snapshot2023092022h00m43s321.png?ex=6519016bis=6517afebhm=b4838759cb636a523eac6acc501659a1d87f22f118ab4e8001155ff423f569ff Why? Tell me why? What the hell is going on? Nicotine BIO BLOOD SOCIETY This is a Guilstein. The creature on the poster is ALSO a Guilstein. To Be Explained Later TBEL. But this Guilstein is an evil Guilstein a monster with no soul. You can tell because it screams instead of talking and contemplating and crouching on the ground all sad. Im getting ahead of myself. This Guilstein is evil. It chases our titular protagonist into the depths below and before she knows it shes met with a second somehow more abrasivelooking Guilstein than before with an even more imposing figure. He takes the bullets like a champ before collapsing into a heap much to the dismay of a group of survivors who soon close in on the girl and start dogpiling her for shooting a creature very similar to the one exploding cars on the surface just minutes ago. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1157547765052739644/snapshot2023092022h04m40s479.png?ex=651901ddis=6517b05dhm=e0542253f847e21bd5c02f30cd4514269a7958871f072fd0beb91d2d9934d243 The Underworlders just kidding they dont have a name I made this shit up are a group of people surviving the threat of the Guilsteins by exploiting the boundaries of the corporations jurisdiction. Apparently as long as you stay outside their zones of operation they cant hunt you down like dogs. Even though these guys are probably less than five miles away from the border of this jurisdiction theyre safe..for now? Its never explained. The Underworlders also have another layer of protection and it goes by the name of Chaos a human turned Guilstein that now fights for these rebel forces in hopes of gaining his human body back. Hes depressed. He sulks about his sad backstory. The girl also sulks over her sad backstory. They bond I think or at least as much as packaging tape bonds to a piece of cardboard. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1154488721517850734/snapshot2023092022h17m58s777.png?ex=65186ce8is=65171b68hm=0be68d4ad0cb4f0fa44efab9124e24fb60b1f875f1838c84e29cc08b1478072a We briefly flash back to Chaos life as a nonGuilstein a brighteyed white boy scientist with a girlfriend a boyfriend and great promise in his industry. That is until his girlfriend makes an awful discovery. The experiment theyve been working on has gone to shit and turns peoples insides out covering them with heaps of metal upon metal Chaos girlfriend sobs and sobs with some corny dialogue which nearly matches that of Spy Kids 2s quality. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1157548157450866688/c9c81d1e79d3432691828630eda4b798708x389.webp?ex=6519023ais=6517b0bahm=c5899d6c0fe6e57af2addba071d73190984bca75d0bf9e50b253f490e30d56f2 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1157548150186323968/48d413f099e74d7ea200564b6b1f33631920x1080.webp?ex=65190239is=6517b0b9hm=c54f587182deec4f3706bcf8d2eff4ff1397fd5622ee8606fcbee307d41026c1 Anyways her and Chaos both agree that this needs to be taken to the public and as Chaos tells his best friend about this his best friend eyes him suspiciously. Its in that moment that even the nonattentive know hes a goddamn snitch. In this Orwellian society you cant even trust your homeboy. So Chaos gets his door busted down like an absolute chump thats what you get for trusting your friend in 1984 and is forcefully experimented on making him into the Chaos gremlin we know and love today The Guilstein. Its here where Guilstein loses all of its guile and delves into more of its stein side becoming more of a monstrous amalgamate rather than a mix of potentially interesting high concepts. Guilstein falls into the poor lower half of Bmovies past taking itself too seriously to the point of unseriousness and entire boredom. After the flashback stated previously Guilstein Part 1 Guilstein Co. resolve to stand against the ultimate authority of the science company previous to stop the Orwellian future from continuing further. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1157548433167622204/snapshot2023092022h15m44s821.png?ex=6519027cis=6517b0fchm=a7fe45fdce69447a11fe4f12e443a115892af396547a6b6dea3ba0671e017bec Its here where you feel the effects of the bubble burst too. See Japan had its heyday in the 80s much as the nostalgia of modern day America would have it believe you to believe that it was in its past except Japan was producing optimistic shit upon optimistic shit. From the bubblegum genre of city pop bursting through the mainstreams consciousness to the excess of media production they were really hitting it big and those productions showed. So when the bubble burst in the 1990s and production companies werent able to spend as much on random directtovideo OVAs the entertainment industry tanked. In fact everything tanked. And Guilstein is a pathetic representation of what was left an overly ambitious underproduced product released to the public in spite of its unfinished state. Harrowing the state of Guilstein is a halfbaked ideafull headempty scifi debut reaching for something more than what it could accomplish. Accomplished writer Brandon Sanderson said that most short films aspire to be more than what they are short films. Theyre short films that aspire to be more than their short lengths and thats their problem that they arent reveling in their shorter form of storytelling and theres some truth to that. Sure we all want to hit it big when it comes to the Hollywood screen but aspiring to be more than what you are leaves something empty on screenAnd its this something empty that plagues Guilstein to its core. It wants to be a short OVA of its 80s heydays so bad but was made just twenty years too late. But goddammit it tries anyways The last half of Guilsteins irreverent runtime chips away at a plotless monotony of political nonsense none of which was hinted at becoming before. Guilsteins eponymous protagonist wishes himself to become human again then does then willingly becomes a Guilstein to topple the ultimate revenge. But the fact that hes able to turn himself back halfway through the film ruins all sense of dramatic tension if our protagonist is able to turn himself back what else are we fighting for? The justice of mankind? Our protagonist was never that just He just wanted to get back to his partner And who can blame him? She was absolutely gorgeous? But then after he switches she dies then we lose her we lose our motivation and we gain the motivation of revenge. Guilstein feels like the first half to a series we never get to see the rest of a vengeful spirit lashing his angst out against a world who can never understand him and whom never wishes to understand him. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1157548578764509194/a6dbc9b3f9424f53b5276024f3405da3708x389.webp?ex=6519029fis=6517b11fhm=e06977fffab97c93d0b814aa0813f898ca3b1137803c5c5b859889c33eb9e843 We shouldve started John Wickstyle in the middle of the plot speedrunning past the nonsense and biting right into the meat of it all the gorey petty revenge against forces insurmountable but Deus Ex Machinad against. Do we focus on the revenge or do we focus on becoming the monster? Humans are multifaceted but characters are not. We needed to focus on one. Just like Guilsteins animation its much too focused on trying to do too much that it loses sight of doing each individual aspect well. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/839734152470724661/1157548791356989580/6881aecd4c824182811cd4f19e26b9f6708x389.webp?ex=651902d2is=6517b152hm=a2c1baff0c7af9ec4dc083334c8af377c300e49a20532f0bf85fb5e3cfe68e19 Guilstein is interesting in that its a microcosm of its time overambitious underbudgeted and overestimated. Everything had to be a smash hit in this time period everything had to be a Terminator a Matrix a Fast Furious. And dammit Guilstein tried But it just couldnt follow through on any single shot it threw. Yet at the same time thats what made it so goddamned interesting to follow Despite being the most middleoftheroad video animation Ive seen in a WHILE Guilstein will stand strong in my mind as one of those series that needed a little bit of funding and a lot more editing. But Im so glad it exists I would love to talk to these guys on staff and ask them about their time on Guillstein if they even remember it. Its shitty project like this that drastically enhance my love for the medium. I love this and I love these guys Even if it didnt turn out the best. song listened to while reviewing Agent Orange Living In Darkness https://www..com/watch?v=g7B5m9W3Fn0 When youre three Monacos in and want to replicate that feeling of being in a bar while not having the devout fear of having your laptop ruined with a couple splashes of Budweiser here comes Agent Orange This punk sound ruptures your eardrums in just the right ways thatll make you want to set high scores of Ms. PacMan and try Donkey Kong again before you give up.